Watch Live: Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

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Watch Live: Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

If the sky is clear tonight, head outside to catch one of the best meteor showers of the year. The Geminids will be at their best on the night of Dec. 13 and the early morning of the 14th, peaking at around 2:00 a.m. local time. You can also watch the live show online from The Slooh Community Observatory starting on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. EST.

As with the Leonid meteor shower in November, Slooh will be broadcasting the virtual sounds of meteors as they dash across the sky. When meteors travel through the atmosphere, they strip atoms of their electrons and create a trail of ionized particles. Radio signals bounce back from these trails and are converted into sounds that seem to come straight from some classic sci-fi movie.

Although most meteor showers happen when Earth passes through a path of debris left by a comet, the source of the Geminids is a 3-mile-wide asteroid-like object called 3200 Phaeton. When it was discovered in 1983, it looked like any other asteroid. But further observations using NASA’s STEREO spacecraft over the last few years have revealed that 3200 Phaeton has a tail like a comet. It's now called a rock comet—yet another in-between object that seems to be part asteroid, part comet.

The last quarter moon is set to rise at around midnight, so you may have to find a darker patch of sky to avoid the lunar glare. The Geminids are supposed to be bright, though, and should still be visible with as many as 60 meteors per hour. Of course, the farther you are from city lights, the better the show will be.